Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Tapas

We’ve just returned from my sister-in-law’s wedding. Our boys were the ring bearers, and they were adorable in their little white tuxedos. This was their second tour of duty in a wedding procession. I enjoyed the opportunity to once again have the conversation about marriage: why people do it, what the promises mean, the symbolism of the rings they carry (well, those they “bear” are fake, just in case; they are only 4 and ill-equipped to handle anything that price). Sure, they don’t understand much of it, but they know enough to know it’s important in human lives, and, most significantly to them, it’s important to their home.

It is important, to make those public vows and to witness them. I’ve been honored to be a best man, twice now (but one groom was smart enough to not have a gay man through his bachelor party ;-)). I take that position with maybe more seriousness than my groom friends intend. You are putting yourself on the line, to stand beside your friend and vouch for him, in front of all that family, and I’m glad to say, for both those men, I did so with pride and confidence. And I’m happy our boys get to feel a bit of that gravity in, as they call it, their “very important job”.

I do feel everyone, in some way, accepting an invitation to a wedding has made themselves responsible to do what they can to support that union and, of course, to never attempt to undermine it in even the most subtle ways. Those promises are made in public for a reason, and people are meant to come for more than good cake and bad dancing.

Simply, even without the backing of law, I’m very happy we took that leap so many years ago, and I’m glad to just that much more familiarize our boys with the idea of marriage.

I don’t know where I was going with this post, just a bit for the chronology in this journal :-). But I do want to add one little anecdote from the wedding, one that I think typifies a great many and loving Mormon mothers.

This was my sister-in-law’s second wedding (yes, a fact I did not explain to the twins :-)). Her parents were leery of her choice to remarry a new guy and so soon, for a couple good reasons I’ll leave out. They were scheduled to meet this man for the first time at our house of all places, as my in-laws were staying with us while they recovered from a traffic accident. Suffice it to say, this guy was coming into a tense situation, but Utah Mormon tense (and I hope that’s not offensive as I do count it as my culture too, and it’s much more pleasant than regular tense, though more sneaky :-)).

But he’s a great guy, very charismatic, and he quickly won over the family. It came out that he’s a restaurant owner. As the conversation progressed he told us he was about to open a tapas Restaurant. You know: spain, small portions… Tapas.

The conversation went on and on, and smoothly. Later that day, when my in-laws were alone together, they were talking about the suitor. After a while my mother-in-law finally said “Well, he’s very nice and he seems very industrious… But I’ve never heard of topless restaurants. Do you think that will do well?” :-)

The whole time she, this very kind and proper LDS woman, had been thinking this prospective son-in-law was about to set up a half nude dining establishment, some extreme version of Hooters. I can’t imagine her distress; why couldn’t all the kids be like R :-)? She was completely befuddled, but waited until she could feel out her husband about it alone. After a good laugh, my father-in-law explained she’d heard wrong, to her relief, and let us all in on the confusion.

Anyway, tapas, topless, I do love R’s family very much, and have been glad to have them in our life and to be there with them through the these good times and the bad.